1. Wednesday I left St. George right after class and headed to SLC. Stopped in Provo for a brief visit with Dallin (20 min.!), drove to SLC and met up with Kristy for a short dinner at Sizzler before heading to the airport to pick up the first of three judges for the event. Mykola Suk and I drove to Rocky's and Cherie's where we spent the night. Didn't sleep well due to all the logistics of things.
2. Thursday, I dropped Mykola off at the music store after a brief check-in at the Garden Hilton Inn in Sandy. Then dashed off to the airport to pick up Caio Pagano and Giorgi Latsabidze, the other two judges. Drove to the hotel, had about 15 minutes to get settled, then drove to Daynes where we had 10 minutes to get everything situated before we started seven hours STRAIGHT of a very intense piano competition. This was the Senior division (ages 15-18) and there were 15 VERY talented competitors. (Dallin's friend, Weiyi Le won!) During a 20 minute break, we ate a quick Cafe Rio dinner that was brought in. After the awards it was back to the hotel with the judges, and my continued work on getting things organized for Friday's competition.
3. Friday, I drove judges to different locations before heading over to the Music Teachers Conference at 8:00 a.m. I WON a gift basket with beautiful taupe towels!! I was thrilled because I was going to buy some next week! Only cost me $1!! I was able to hear bits and pieces of a couple workshops, and then it was time for our Junior division (ages 11-14) competition. Banquet afterwards with the conference, and the judges and I bowed out early due to our fatigue. However, Kristy came over to the hotel and gave me a "good" (bad!) workout. I KNEW I would be sore!! (And I was...could barely walk down the stairs on Saturday...Sunday was worse!)
4. Saturday we had an early (7:00 a.m., awake at 4:00 a.m.) board meeting...had to leave early to deliver judges to practice areas (they each perform internationally and have events coming up). Got a few more snatches of conference workshops in, lunch with the judges, and then non-stop collegiate division (ages 19-26) competition from 1:00 - 8:00 p.m. Kristy was there to help with door monitoring. (Lots of memorable stuff, but don't want to go into too much detail...)
5. By 9:30 we were all sitting at a table at Carino's restaurant. . . and my massive headache for the past 24 hours finally subsided . . . even GOOD stuff can be stressful.
6. Sunday morning saw me up at 4:00 a.m., taking judges to the airport at 6:00. Then getting back to the hotel, checking out, and taking my piano student (Alex Tucker), and Giorgi to meet up with Kristy at The Spoken Word at 8:45. When we walked into the Tabernacle with the choir warming up, Giorgi was blown away with what he saw and heard. It sent chills down me, too! Afterwards, we walked around Temple Square, watched the Joseph Smith movie at the Visitor's Center, went to the reflection pool, the south Visitor's Center, then realized we were barely going to make it to church with Brandon and Tannya in South Weber. Sure enjoyed holding Nikki in church, while listening to the talks!
7. Headed back to Salt Lake, dropped Giorgi off at the airport, got Kristy back to her car by the temple, and drove down to Provo to exchange laptops with Dallin (his needs some major repair and I have a brand new one. . . is something wrong with this picture???); drop off a debit card for Natalee to pick up so she could buy gas for her trip home (another long story...), and then FINALLY got on the road back to St. George by 6:30 p.m. I was just a tad concerned about driving on so little sleep in the dark, but I was VERY blessed, and received phone calls right when I needed them and got into town around 9:45. I was exhausted and happy to be home!!
I absolutely LOVE the friendships I have made over the past four years of being in charge of the piano competitions. Giorgi has recently been invited to join the piano faculty at the Music Conservatory in Vienna, Austria and he has invited Kristy, Me and Dad to come visit next year!! I told him he is adopted into the family, so just know you all have an older brother...just two years older than Denz! Maybe we should all pop over and pay him a visit. All the judges were amazed when it came up that we have seven children in our family. I told it was nothing compared to my sister-in-law with 14 children! Isn't life relative!?!?
Well, that let's you know what I'VE been doing this weekend. All Dad did was WIN AN IPAD II at the technology conference he attended while I was gone!! (And I thought my towels were cool...) He is LOVING learning about it and using it. VERY COOL TECHNOLOGY!!
Hope your lives are calmer than ours!!
Love,
Mom
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